Peanut Butter Cookies

I must have been about 16 or 17 the first time I tried peanut butter. I remember hearing about it through American cultural references, but I think it has only become more popular the UK in the last few years. I also remember thinking how strange the whole peanut butter and jam sandwich combination sounded. But then I actually tried it and I was made to eat my hat. Or sandwich. Whatever,

The same applied when I first heard about peanut butter cookies. Although it seems to be another American favourite, it always seemed a little strange to me. I guess I should add here that I've never been much of a peanut fan. I only really ever came across them in packets of Bombay Mix and I always used to pick them out.

But I have slowly become quite fond of peanut butter. I like a spoonful in a hot bowl of porridge or as a dip with slices of apple sprinkled with ground cinnamon. So when I saw the great reviews of peanut butter cookies, I took it upon myself as a reformed peanut-skeptic to try it out at least once,

And what a pleasant surprise these cookies turned out to be. As you can tell from the pictures, they are crisp on the outside but super soft on the inside. I found that the actual taste of the peanut butter was quite subtle in the cookie, and it came through more in the smell rather than taste. The use of brown sugar also gave quite a nice fudgy taste too.

All in all, it was a recipe that was enjoyed both by myself and my family. And considering it took less than 1 hour to make them all, it's a pretty great recipe to try out.

I used the following recipe from Julia at Julia's Album to make these cookies. I didn't make any real adaptations other than sifting the flour before adding it to the wet ingredients. As I can sometimes be a bit heavy handed when it comes to baking and often end up with stiff or poorly risen bakes, I was very gentle when bringing the wet and dry ingredients together. I just used a light cutting motion and tried not to over-mix. I do think though, sifting the flour helped keep the inside of the cookie nice and soft.

Julia also made a note of how to properly measure flour in her recipe, recommending to measure flour after you have sifted. However, I am super lazy when it comes to baking so I pretty much skipped this. I just did my standard thing of measuring and then sifting. The good news is that the cookies were fine without the added step, and in fact, as already mentioned, they were super light inside anyway.


So give this recipe a go! They really are a easy as they seem. You can find the full recipe here at Juliasalbums.com.